The Portland daily press., 1887-04-23
TRAGEDIES OF JOURNALISM.
Great Editors Who Have Died I'm
known and Mysteriously.

[Joseph Howard in Boston Globe.]
have had occasion before to refer to the
tragedies of journalism, and today had the
subject brought with unusual force to my
mind by two incidents. In looking over
collection of large photographs came across
a picture of the staff of the Brooklyn Eagle
as it existed in 1S6S-a large staff, with the
proprietor at its head, and out of the entire
number but two-Henry Chadwick, the great
authority on out door sports in general and
base ball in particular. and myself, alone re-
MAN. All the rest are dead years ago, and
every one of them might be living today had
they taken any sort of care of themselves.
The other incident was the sight of lady
who has just been appointed editor of Har-
per's Bazaar, Helen Conant, the brainy wife
or widow, as the case may be, of my old
friend, Stillman Conant, for years respon-
sible manager Of the New York Times, and
for more than twenty years in the employ of
the Harpers as managing editor of their
| great weekly.
| He disappeared, you remember, about
year and a half ago, and has never been
| heard from,
His wife, good, faithful soul, keeps the
house precisely as he left it. His chair, his
slippers, his pipe, all are ready for the in
| coming of the truant, whose return she fond
| ly believes will be certainty yet Conant
was rare avis. He came of literary stock.
| His father, still living is the venerable DR..
| Thomas j. Conant, translator of the Bible
| for the Baptist Union. His mother, Han
| nah Conant, was well known years ago as
| writer in womens magazines of unusual
| force and peculiar gifts. Conant himself re-
| ceiyed an admirable basis education, and
| then travelled, becoming linguist of excep-
tional proficiency and a student in a wide
| realm.
He was an art critic, book reviewer,
nice judge of poetic endeavor, and man of
unusual common sense, but his devotion to
tobacco was something marvellous.
He was a man of large frame and great
vitality, but club life knocked him from the
solid platform of sturdy health in the twink
ling of an eye.
He could smoke and drink and talk and
write and think till 3 or 4 O'Clock in the
morning every night in every week.
Then he broke down.
That at all events is my diagnosis of the case
and when he broke down whether he drifted
out to sea from the narrow confines of Coney
Islands creek, whose waters seekthe broad
Atlantic, or whether with more distressing
| fate he lapsed into sudden imbecility and i'd
Joey, and today unknowing and unknown,
forms part and parcel Of that army OF asy-
| lUCuIdDlCSt WIN Cdn Pcll III Sttlllo W
| me that sad and terrible as was the fate of
| the Fairchilds it was brightness itself in COM
parison to that dreadful end, which must
long since have come to C0nant, death or
mental impotency.
1t singular fact concerning the great
names of journalism, in this part of the
world, at least, that so many of them went
| out unpleasantly. When l began writing,
the four morning dailies of consequence here
were the Herald, the Times, the Tribune and
the World.
How or where Henry j. Raymond died nc
one knows who cares to tell.
Report said that the great editor OF the
| Times was found dying in his hallway, but
it is generally believed that he died before
| he was found, and that he was carried there
1 by parties to the public unknown, the dool
| opened with the night key found in his peck
ct. and he left, Horace Greeley, founder
and first editor of the Tribune. was insane {
| week before he died.
Disappointed ambition and overstrained
| physique, a shattered mind, great funeral
Spaulding of the World was raving lu.
matte, and wandered about the streets OF
New York, until found and recognized b,
| the merest accident and spared the humllia
ton of death in the gutter: FREDERICK hud
son, managing editor Of the Herald, unqel
James Gordon Bennett, ST., was driving viii
his family along q country ROAD IN New
Hampshire when, with the swlttness O
lightning, an express train ran them dow
and hurried them without moment warn
| ing to eternity.
One of the brightest writers New forl
ever had was curious fellow by the NAM
| of Halpine.